Category Archives: Photos

Morning time=Quiet time

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Morning time is my favorite time of the day.  Yes, it’s full of promise, fresh start, good intentions and all that jazz, but it’s truly the QUIET TIME of the day for me.  Which is why it’s worth it to me to get up a good hour (or more) before my offspring.  I want my coffee in peace.  I want to read the daily Readings.  I want to think and process through the day or yesterday.  I pray in peace.  There is no speaking (something Hubby has finally realized!).  And at some point, when Hubby has moved on to getting ready for the day or has left for work our little cat settles for Lap#2 (me).  His first choice is Daddy.  A fact that perplexes and infuriates our daughters to no end.  Either way, when it’s MY turn for some kitty cuddles, he’s all up in my business, paws on keyboard, nose on coffee mug, head butting my petting hand.  It’s his quiet time, too.

And…..since today is July 4th and we will be celebrating America’s birthday with my sister and her family in town for the night, I am enjoying the only QUIET I’ll see all day 😉  It will be beach in the morning and then pool and BBQ in the afternoon and a certainty of fireworks tonight which will be going off despite the fact that I will be getting up in the morning to work.   It’s all good though!  There’s something to be said for having a day off mid-week!

I think I can, I think I can….

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Just thought I’d take a little break from moving 3 years of blogs over with 4 days left…..however, I am only down to the last 3 months and I just finished the annual May blog-a-palooza, so it should go quickly from here (in theory).Since I am usually BURNED out after May I don’t blog too much for a bit, although last year was pretty intense from May on so I may have had lots to share…..either way, I hear the Rocky theme in my head and I’ve got this!!!  Just.  Three.  More.  Months.  ADRIANNE!!!!!

We had a little storm this week, starting Sunday and today, actually this evening, the skies FINALLY began to clear.  See above photo.  In celebration of sunshine, I opted out of boot camp and opted in for a brisk walk around the neighborhood with our youngest while big sis was at soccer, Dad was running at the soccer fields, our oldest was skating and our youngest son was bike riding with my nephew.  We weren’t going stir crazy at all……

I’m off to bed…two stinky nights of interrupted sleep, I’m ready to SLEEP the whole night through!!!  I hope….

Date night and U2

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Hubby and I celebrated our 18th anniversary a couple of weeks ago, however, it was smack DAB at the end of the school year with a flurry of kiddo stuff, so we finally went to a nice dinner to celebrate last night.  Hey, better late than never, right?

Impressive building, eh? Not only houses the culinary school but the Photography school and Museum.

We went to the local state college because we had heard great things about their Cafe 101:  the culinary school that offers lunch (reservations only @ $10) and dinner on Wednesdays (reservations only @ $15).  The meal was fabulous.  I’m still full.  Four courses.  A limited menu, however, Hubby and I ordered opposite choices and pretty much sampled the menu.  I’ve never had such amazing conch fritters.  There goes my mouth, watering again!

Lovely, intimate atmosphere. Seats 75. I think there were 15 people tops the whole time we were there.

It was nice to get out.  We don’t realize how busy we are during the week, working and tending to children and family life.  Weekends are filled with chores and family outings (next weekend we have friends visiting–WOOT WOOT!!!) , so getting away just the two of us is rare.  Uninterrupted conversation, catching up on the week, etc, etc.  The funny thing is (or pathetic, depending on how you look at it), during the day, I jotted down notes on my phone of things I wanted to make sure we discussed during our date.  OY.  These aging, multitasking, distracted brain cells.  Know what?  It worked!

To top the evening off, we did a little price shopping on eyeglasses for our youngest and a new pair for Hubby.  Holy COW they are expensive, so we wanted to see if we could get a better deal than our ophthalmologist’s office–yes, about 1/2 off!!!!!

Came home to kiddos getting along, showered, full of pizza, settling in to watch America’s Funniest Videos and ready for bed.  It was a good night.  And my date was great!!  He smelled real good, too! Falling asleep, we both laughed recalling one of our first dates when he said something to me as U2 was playing SO SOFTLY on the radio that somehow I thought I heard “I love you”.  My response was , ” Love me?  You hardly even know me?!”  After laughing, he explained he loved U2—DUH!  That wasn’t awkward at all.  So we still laugh and we both remember EXACTLY where we were when I said it.  Good times.  Good times!  At least now I can say, “I love you, too”  and “I love U2”, because they are both still true!

Blessings and Happy GO SKATE DAY!!!

My boy, grinding a rail last year..generally he prefers to film!

Summer time….work ethic in progress

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Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, it’s off to mow we go….

He’s not always this happy to get going….but there was a nice breeze that day!

Gassing up to get it done!

Companions to the workhorse lawn mower

Big Blue. Crucial accessory to summertime outdoors activity, whether it’s cutting the lawns, skateboarding or hitting the beach. HYDRATE, HYDRATE, HYDRATE!!

Our boys’ summer.  Once a week they have 4 lawns to take care of.  3 they actually get paid for in cold hard cash or check.  The other is paid for in food, lodging, love, laundry, food, privileges, hugs, food, guidance, boundaries, kisses, security and food.

Hubby helped them to procure the jobs last year and though they don’t always enjoy the work aspect of the jobs (please, I’m grumbling every Monday so I can’t exactly fault them here…who REALLY loves work versus recreation), they DO enjoy the payment aspect of the jobs.  (They do these jobs year-round, not just summer)  They are learning the value of a dollar, taking pride in a job well-done, interacting with the public, working for a difficult boss, honing their communication skills, team work, and it passes the time at least one morning each week during the summer.

Realistically, we can’t provide for their every whim and fancy.  We have four children.  We work full-time.  Their little whims and fancies are getting progressively more expensive as they age.  Out of necessity comes valuable life lessons in work ethic, saving, tithing and communication.  We hope to add volunteering to their summer plans to further grow their hearts and spirits to a spirit of serving others and taking the focus off of “self” (a lifelong effort for us all, isn’t it?).

And so, coming across this quote on Facebook yesterday by John Talpene (though I’ve not been able to fully verify it is from him–the message is SPOT-ON!), I feel even better about encouraging their lawn business because maybe, just maybe, we are on the right path….and THAT is encouraging!!

John Talpene quote, image from HERE

This quote has been running around Facebook for a few months and though I can’t actually verify if this principal is the one who quoted it, I must say the message is OUTSTANDING!!  I fully plan on printing this out and sharing with out kiddos.  The crux of the message is old-fashioned values don’t go out of style (much like Audrey Hepburn’s LBD).  You can’t go wrong here, in fact we’ve often gotten so far from this message in our “instant gratification” society that it’s not so difficult to see the difference of the fruit born of the polar opposite styles in parenting of the message below and today’s “I-want-it-all-but-I don’t-want-to-work-for-it” generation.  A generation that WE are cultivating.

Proverbs 22:6

Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Martha, your enterprise is safe. For now….

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Our youngest turned 9 last week and since I had the day off for her birthday, I agreed to make the cake she requested:  Red velvet with cream cheese icing AND chocolate with chocolate icing….layered up.  OK.  No prob.  I am sure her vision was something like this:

OK, maybe we watch too much Cake Boss….besides she knows me too well. I don’t even have a tiny square pan like the top layer!!

**image by yumsugar.com

More likely, her visions were of this type of cake…(just imagine some chocolate layers between the red velvet….)

I actually HAVE made a few layered numbers sorta, kinda similar to this. Really. I just can’t find the pictures right now…..
Image by southernliving.com

Off to Publix I went.  And lo and freaking behold, there was not ONE red velvet cake mix.  WTHeck!??!  So, I went on my phone, pulled up a recipe (which took FOREVAH–the signal is lousy in that store!) and procured the ingredients.  Confident of my preparations and time frame, back home I went.

Turns out, between the two cake batters I had enough for cupcakes, too!  BONUS!  This was going to be a spectacular cake.

When I began to smell burning cake (8 minutes before the timer went off) I quickly removed the pans and checked for done-ness.  With the exception of one pan, everything was ready.

The problem was that the red velvet layer cooked too quickly on the bottom.  So I brought out my serrated knife to cut off that portion.  The cake itself was moist and lovely, hence…the darn thing began to crumble as I cut off the burnt portion.

Crumble-palooza, Summer 2012!!

The issues continued as the second pan didn’t QUITE come out intact (apparently I missed a spot with the spray…)

I decided on making the best of it.  I cut the red velvet layer in two, turned it upside down and began to frost.  Then layering with the chocolate layer and “gluing” it together with frosting–there is no such thing as too much frosting, by the way.  Topped it with the red velvet layer and then used cupcakes to hold the darn thing together and up (as for some reason it was now leaning to the side…).

As I surveyed the damage final result, I pondered running back to Publix and purchasing one of their ready-to-go FANCY SCHMANCY cakes, but my husband said, “it will still taste OK.”

As our daughter arrived home from VBS, I Happy birthday-ed her to death, oohed and ahhed over her 9-year-old self and buttered her up for the sell.  She paused as she took in the confectionary conundrum, listened to her sister as she assisted in the sell (God LOVE that girl!!!) and turned with the biggest smile ever, “That is so COOL!!!”.  Phew.  Crisis averted.

**on a side note, my girlfriend recently revealed to me that she often enjoys “Cake in a bag”, the result of an ALMOST  thrown away iced cake (can you even IMAGINE such a travesty!?!?!) and that yes, indeed, even if it looks awful, it DOES still taste good.  I was clinging to that hope.

So. For now.  Martha Stewart has nothing to fear.  Give me time and perhaps a little patience, attention to detail and a concern about what other people think…..and look out.  So, until then….VOILA!

ZEE Masterpiece, non?

Throw a bunch of candles on it and there you go! Smiles!!

The leftover carnage….and yes, it was AWESOME! (especially the red velvet part)

To recreate this baking WONDER, I pulled the Red Velvet recipe from HERE.  As for the rest.  Any chocolate cake mix.  And throw all your cares out the window and let ‘er rip!  Bon Appetit!!

Galations 5:22 -23

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.